Actually, I think that Motorola sells far more processors in the embedded market than they do to Apple - which is why, in my opinion, Apple has been low on the totem pole for a few years now.
I'm not a processor expert or anything, but this can't spell anything but good competition with Intel (not that they're evil or anything, but they haven't had a reason to make their chips better performers, and no, increasing clock cycles doesn't count). Won't hurt Apple either unless it requires their developers to rewrite stuff (haven't they done this enough already with the Mac OS X transition?)
I think Intel has had one big reason to make their chips better performers: AMD. I don't knock IBM, but the fact of the matter is that IBM hasn't been at the top of the microprocessor curve for a few years, in my opinion. While many systems still use IBM's mainframes, quite a few systems have converted to n-way multi-processing Intel-based architectures. As far as Apple's developers having to rewrite stuff, I believe that most if not all of Jaguar (OS X 10.2) is compiled with gcc3.1 - so, for Apple it would be as simple as ensuring a decent backend to gcc3.x for this new processor (chances are that this is already 'in the works' by IBM).
Multiple processors in a chip? Good. AltiVec or similar number-crunching in combination? Great. If Apple pursues this, their boxes might--might achieve a performance that easily blows away the still-powerful SGI workstations and their slow-clocks-but-very-powerful processors (MIPS? Alpha? Can't remember right now).
I'm not sure that SGI has any particular headway any longer. Maybe against certain machines in Apple's lineup, but I know here at my current employer, we've been using SGI Octanes and Octane IIs for heavy duty image processing in our products and we're getting ready to deploy a new architecture based on a dual-Xeon HP box running Linux (to replace Irix which we use on the SGIs). Performance of the image processing applications is unchanged or better and the cost savings to the company are very decent. Incidentally, the SGIs that I know of all use MIPS processors - only machines from Digital (DEC), now Compaq, use Alpha processors, to my knowledge.
I hope that some other enterprising company works up a PC mobo that can handle it for those not inclined to Apple products. That would light a file under Wintel's corporate ass to build something better.
The motherboards used in current Apple products are, for all intents and purposes, 'PC' mobos. They have standard AGP & PCI slots, use PC RAM (DDR at 133MHz or more) and provide connectivity through a number of PC compatible technologies (Intel's USB bus, IEEE 1394/Firewire, Ethernet, etc.) Its not really a matter of the processor/mobo combo being PC or not, its a matter of what OS you want to run. You can get a Mac and run most of the popular flavors of Linux on it (notable exception: RedHat). No problem. I'm not sure that much of anything will light a fire under the Wintel monopoly. Just my opinion, though.
I don't see this as being a huge deal. While having Office v.X on the Mac is very, very nice - it certainly isn't a 'must have' for many Mac users. Especially if they at all care about concepts such as Palladium (which, unfortunately, most people don't). Appleworks is a very capable office application allowing a Mac user most all the functionality an office product should. Sun and the OpenOffice.org team may actually produce a decent version of OO, though I'm not holding my breath.
In any case - if the hardware & software that makes up the core of Apple's offering (PowerMac & Mac OS X) stays DRM free, I believe the platform as a whole will be quite useful to those of us wanting to stay away from Palladium and related technologies - regardless of what Microsoft decides to do with Office v.X future releases.
Incidentally, the entire point is worthless if certain lobbyists get their way and make DRM technologies in computers the law. At that point, Apple will have to use DRM or go out of business. So - instead of looking forward to one or the other hardware manufacturer, folks should be contacting their legislaters to ensure that DRM requirements never make it into the US law books!
It stuns me to see how many naive and narrow-minded people post to slashdot. Ferkrisakes. Guess people don't truly understand what RedHat is... a business. They're trying to increase their user base (the *paying* user base) - to do that, they listen to their *paying* customers and do some research into what would make other people switch to RedHat. Simultaneously, they'll try to cut their own costs so as to increase profit margins - something that shareholders typically enjoy.
Does this mean that Linux enthusiasts can no longer customize their install of RedHat? No... it simply means that GNOME and KDE will look like REDHAT out of the box, not like GNOME or KDE. Don't get the panties in a wad about it - its not that big a deal.
I imagine that RedHat sees a good deal of competition from Apple at the moment... Apple already has the desktop market (for those not afraid to switch from Windows) and is gunning for the server market - which RedHat has a pretty decent handle on, so far. With these changes, RedHat is gunning to win over some of the folks out there that just want to get some work done, and not have the interface stand in your way.
Its a good thing, just think about it and please, for the love of Slashdot, stop bellyaching!
Another workaround for this bug exists that for some may be less draconian than disabling the onUnload Javascript handler. This *should* have the same effect as using a proxy that strips REFERER headers from your requests:
user_pref("network.http.sendRefererHeader", 0);
Placed in your prefs.js (or whichever.js file you want to store it in.
PHP is certainly not intended to be a middle-tier language, which is where remote calls would be most useful. That said, there's no reason some time couldn't be invested to find a work-around. Many C libraries can be wrapped with ease and accessed from PHP. Find a C library that allows for RPC (or remote object calls) and wrap it. Nevermind the ease with which Java classes integrate with PHP (its dead-simple) and Java's well known RMI (et al) support, you should be set.
As other posters have mentioned, PHP doesn't need to natively do *everything* - that just serves to bloat. But, it ought not *prevent* anything (which is Perl's mantra, too). For the most part, this is the case, especially with the Java integration. Between PHP and Java, if you find something that you can't do, I'd be most surprised. And if so - just use Perl:)
Very nicely put. I'd like to chime in and say that reading programming books out on the deck is sweet. Yes, I could drag my 802.11b hooked-up Latitude or iBook out there, but its a lot easier to read a book when its *sunny* outside than it is to see an LCD screen!:)
Having a good library of computer books is about the best investment in ones future that any programmer can make. I've known of folks that grab a C programming manual that's easily 10 or more years old, just for the odd algorithm that showed up in there that they'd like to use for something. I've grabbed my old Ada83 books for info on setting up certain data structures easily.
You're not alone, not by a long shot. Having an online reference is priceless (especially one edited by the users of a particular technology), but having a dead tree version is equally priceless. I'd hate to develop without either.
I agree with other responses to your comment. Additionally, you don't need to take 'God' quite so literally, either. So you believe in karma or nirvana or what have you - fine. I believe the original posters intent was to direct you to consult your spirituality, whatever that might be. And as another poster has mentioned, atheism isn't spirituality, its the lack thereof. If you're happy with that, far be it from me to disagree with that - to each their own. However, even atheists typically have some sort of philosophy to follow, be it Kant or Socrates or any number of other philosophers. Since spirituality is very much akin to philosophy (consider it a philosophy of living), reflect on your philosophy of life, if you are indeed an atheist.
I, too, was wondering if SGI has produced a patch for this or if its running a linus kernel. Chances are, though, it isn't 2.4.x which is in maintenance mode, but rather the 2.5.x series, which is concentrating on enhancing scaleability. Surprising, however, that the 2.5.x line would have gotten such impressive results so early. 2.5.x has only been in the works for a short time now, right?!?
So, if its not worth it then wouldn't that mean that either the cost of bandwidth to the backbone or the equipment necessary to offer higher speeds to the last mile (if that's an issue) would be a limiting factor?!? Otherwise, why limit the bandwidth?!?
I understand what you're saying about 1.5Mbps being fine for 95% of customers (it is for me), but this thread was talking about how having fiber-optics in the last mile won't make much of a difference because of the cost of bandwidth currently... do you disagree?
If you want the system to work, you'll need to reform a few things. For example, the RIAA fixes the prices on CDs. The MPAA must do something to keep the prices constant for going to the movies - here in Madison it costs between $9 and $12 to go to a non-matinee movie. And that's for *every* movie... doesn't matter if the movie is good or bad, adult or child - fixed price.
These types of things provide certain industries with monopoly control. When an industry with monopoly control also controls copyright and other IP law, you're in a world of hurt. And the actual corporations would be in as much of a world of hurt as we would be, in the long run. If someone sat down to think about it (like Jack Valenti, for instance) - they might take a different stance.
Read the article - it says that the university is not devulging any aspects of the person's identity at their request. So, they know - they just aren't telling anyone. It really isn't that hard.
The donation is anonymous for us, not for the university.
While it is true that we are currently not a large enough lobby (that can and probably will change), we are most certainly a large enough voting block. I recently wrote my senator, Russ Feingold (WI), about various bills/amendments introduced that affect the broadcast flag and such. I got a personal (not form) letter back from him (or one of his staffers) addressing my concerns and inviting me to keep him in the loop on further developments and even drop by his office.
Whenever you see a YRO (your rights online) article that elicits a call to action, DO SOMETHING! Write your senators, your representatives, bring it to the attention of your state and national lawmakers, including your governor. Granted, things won't change immediately, but we do have a voice - the more folks that actually do something, the sooner things will start changing. If you're tired of picking up the morning newspaper and only seeing non-important smack in it, write your newspaper editors, compose an article and see if it gets run - even on the most removed page in the newspaper, something is better than nothing!
People are far to content to do nothing. Thinking that if they don't have $100 or $1000 to provide to the EFF then there's nothing to be done. Think again! Poor college student? Get something written up in the college newspaper. Run a petition - see how many folks in your college/university feel the same way you do - try to educate the ones that don't or listen to their reasons why they oppose you. I imagine a good number of college kids will understand why giving the RIAA/MPAA unfettered access to your computer for the suspicion that you might be harboring copyrighted materials (illegally) is a BAD thing. If you find folks that understand what you're talking about - have THEM write to their congressmen, senators, governors, etc. as well. Don't use form letters, but provide 'em with topics to address. And there's nothing wrong with one individual using the same letter (with slight modifications maybe) to *all* the lawmakers that they vote for... just don't have *everyone* use the same letter to the same lawmakers... its perfectly fine if I write the same letter to Tammy Baldwin (Representative, WI), Russ Feingold (Senator, WI), my district's state senators/reps and the soon to be newly elected governor (hopefully Kathleen Falk, but we'll see). Its not like they're gonna sit down and talk about your letter with each other - and if they do, its not like they'll be offended that they got the same one. After all, its from the same person. They only get offended (or just ignore 'em) if they get the same letter from multiple people - that's bad!
My memories are somewhat foggy on the Ross Perot commercials, but from what I remember, he wasn't going head-to-head with the bread-n-butter of the television networks. Just a thought...
I just read that telecoms have an excess of long haul bandwidth, which means that the issues are the cost of the last mile and consumer uptake
While I can understand that the cost of the last mile and consumer uptake can be significant, these are one-time non-recurring costs. Maintenance of the last mile and other infrastructure systems is a recurring cost, as is the cost of backbone connection. Capping bandwidth doesn't really make sense if the last mile and consumer uptake is the limiting factor, right?
I'm not sure what the solution is to getting the cost of last-mile installation down. Seems you'll always be needing to pay for the techs to come out and get things setup, until the broadband connections are ubiquitous.
A good commercial is going to cost a good bit more than $1 million to reach any magnitude of people, never mind the cost of actually producing the commercial. Furthermore, never mind the media that the commercial will run on: television, owned by such folks as Time Warner and the like who are card carrying members of the MPAA, last I checked. Not to be pessimistic or anything, but just put it into perspective. I, also, am dubious about what $1 million will do in the hands of Duke University's law school.
Precisely... it'll be *so* nice to have fiber-optics to my house (and even wired *in* my house) and still only get a measly 2Mbps to the 'Net. I think what we'll find happening in the next 5-10 yrs, though, is having differing levels of speed based on geography.
For instance, homes will be outfitted with particularly high-bandwidth mediums (to stream video from TiVo to TiVo, etc). Then, connections within your neighborhood, community, town will be the next level of bandwidth, as you stay within your local 'Net (so accessing the local newspaper, TV stations, gov't., etc. will be real quick). Then, access to state-wide and nation-wide services will be the next level, as your connection has to traverse the various backbones to get where its going. Finally, access to global resources will be the last level, as you have to traverse intercontinental (trans-pacific/trans-atlantic) connections (satellite, ocean-bed fiber, etc.)
As the contention for a connection increases, based on the number of folks who would potentially want to access it (less folks want to access local community resources than sites such as CNN or Reuters), the bandwidth experienced will necessarily decrease, right?
Just a quick note: there are two spellings to this: Fiber and Fibre. Fiber refers to the glass/plastic optical medium whereas Fibre refers to a type of communication, I believe. E.g. fibre channel, a popular method of high-speed connection for external drives. Nothing optical about it (though it can work over fiber-optic cables) and the protocol that runs over it can be SCSI (or anything else, such as TCP/IP).
No doubt... I certainly don't, and a good number of businesses I work with don't, either. Considering a T1 at 1.5Mbps still sets you back between $500 and $1K a month, T3 lines (at 45Mbps) will set you back quite a bit more, I imagine (about 1-2 yrs ago, I heard a T3 would run you about $20K per month). I can't fathom what Rackspace must pay in monthly bandwidth fees for the 3 OC-12s, an OC-3 and a DS-3, which they try to keep at 60% bandwidth utilization (or so). Christ.
It's all about getting these big fat pipes that were laid in North America to people who want broadband - and real broadband, not the wussy broadband people are marketing at the moment.
Maybe I'm just naive (probably), but the limiting factor today for broadband Internet access is the cost of the bandwidth, possibly due to the stranglehold a few key companies have on access to their backbones. The cable that comes into my house can be used for speeds in excess of 30Mbps, if I recall correctly, yet I have a mere 1.5-2Mbps (at $39.95/mo). Admittedly, DSL has technical limitations on speed, but even so, the large limiting factor seems to be the cost of an OC-12/48/96 connection to the 'Net, right?
When is that gonna change?!? What is needed to bring about that change? Regulation?
Actually, we don't. Hubble would have to be about 10 times larger to be able to make out any of the lunar modules on the landing sites, at the distance the moon is from Hubble's orbit. Currently, it can discern objects or features about 80m in diameter. Obviously, the lunar modules are a good bit smaller.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I think that Motorola sells far more processors in the embedded market than they do to Apple - which is why, in my opinion, Apple has been low on the totem pole for a few years now.
Cheers.
I think Intel has had one big reason to make their chips better performers: AMD. I don't knock IBM, but the fact of the matter is that IBM hasn't been at the top of the microprocessor curve for a few years, in my opinion. While many systems still use IBM's mainframes, quite a few systems have converted to n-way multi-processing Intel-based architectures. As far as Apple's developers having to rewrite stuff, I believe that most if not all of Jaguar (OS X 10.2) is compiled with gcc3.1 - so, for Apple it would be as simple as ensuring a decent backend to gcc3.x for this new processor (chances are that this is already 'in the works' by IBM).
I'm not sure that SGI has any particular headway any longer. Maybe against certain machines in Apple's lineup, but I know here at my current employer, we've been using SGI Octanes and Octane IIs for heavy duty image processing in our products and we're getting ready to deploy a new architecture based on a dual-Xeon HP box running Linux (to replace Irix which we use on the SGIs). Performance of the image processing applications is unchanged or better and the cost savings to the company are very decent. Incidentally, the SGIs that I know of all use MIPS processors - only machines from Digital (DEC), now Compaq, use Alpha processors, to my knowledge.
The motherboards used in current Apple products are, for all intents and purposes, 'PC' mobos. They have standard AGP & PCI slots, use PC RAM (DDR at 133MHz or more) and provide connectivity through a number of PC compatible technologies (Intel's USB bus, IEEE 1394/Firewire, Ethernet, etc.) Its not really a matter of the processor/mobo combo being PC or not, its a matter of what OS you want to run. You can get a Mac and run most of the popular flavors of Linux on it (notable exception: RedHat). No problem. I'm not sure that much of anything will light a fire under the Wintel monopoly. Just my opinion, though.
I don't see this as being a huge deal. While having Office v.X on the Mac is very, very nice - it certainly isn't a 'must have' for many Mac users. Especially if they at all care about concepts such as Palladium (which, unfortunately, most people don't). Appleworks is a very capable office application allowing a Mac user most all the functionality an office product should. Sun and the OpenOffice.org team may actually produce a decent version of OO, though I'm not holding my breath.
In any case - if the hardware & software that makes up the core of Apple's offering (PowerMac & Mac OS X) stays DRM free, I believe the platform as a whole will be quite useful to those of us wanting to stay away from Palladium and related technologies - regardless of what Microsoft decides to do with Office v.X future releases.
Incidentally, the entire point is worthless if certain lobbyists get their way and make DRM technologies in computers the law. At that point, Apple will have to use DRM or go out of business. So - instead of looking forward to one or the other hardware manufacturer, folks should be contacting their legislaters to ensure that DRM requirements never make it into the US law books!
Chances are, iCal doesn't support digest authentication via HTTP.
It stuns me to see how many naive and narrow-minded people post to slashdot. Ferkrisakes. Guess people don't truly understand what RedHat is ... a business. They're trying to increase their user base (the *paying* user base) - to do that, they listen to their *paying* customers and do some research into what would make other people switch to RedHat. Simultaneously, they'll try to cut their own costs so as to increase profit margins - something that shareholders typically enjoy.
... it simply means that GNOME and KDE will look like REDHAT out of the box, not like GNOME or KDE. Don't get the panties in a wad about it - its not that big a deal.
... Apple already has the desktop market (for those not afraid to switch from Windows) and is gunning for the server market - which RedHat has a pretty decent handle on, so far. With these changes, RedHat is gunning to win over some of the folks out there that just want to get some work done, and not have the interface stand in your way.
Does this mean that Linux enthusiasts can no longer customize their install of RedHat? No
I imagine that RedHat sees a good deal of competition from Apple at the moment
Its a good thing, just think about it and please, for the love of Slashdot, stop bellyaching!
Another workaround for this bug exists that for some may be less draconian than disabling the onUnload Javascript handler. This *should* have the same effect as using a proxy that strips REFERER headers from your requests:
.js file you want to store it in.
user_pref("network.http.sendRefererHeader", 0);
Placed in your prefs.js (or whichever
Cheers.
PHP is certainly not intended to be a middle-tier language, which is where remote calls would be most useful. That said, there's no reason some time couldn't be invested to find a work-around. Many C libraries can be wrapped with ease and accessed from PHP. Find a C library that allows for RPC (or remote object calls) and wrap it. Nevermind the ease with which Java classes integrate with PHP (its dead-simple) and Java's well known RMI (et al) support, you should be set.
:)
As other posters have mentioned, PHP doesn't need to natively do *everything* - that just serves to bloat. But, it ought not *prevent* anything (which is Perl's mantra, too). For the most part, this is the case, especially with the Java integration. Between PHP and Java, if you find something that you can't do, I'd be most surprised. And if so - just use Perl
Cheers.
Very nicely put. I'd like to chime in and say that reading programming books out on the deck is sweet. Yes, I could drag my 802.11b hooked-up Latitude or iBook out there, but its a lot easier to read a book when its *sunny* outside than it is to see an LCD screen! :)
Having a good library of computer books is about the best investment in ones future that any programmer can make. I've known of folks that grab a C programming manual that's easily 10 or more years old, just for the odd algorithm that showed up in there that they'd like to use for something. I've grabbed my old Ada83 books for info on setting up certain data structures easily.
To each their own!
Cheers.
You're not alone, not by a long shot. Having an online reference is priceless (especially one edited by the users of a particular technology), but having a dead tree version is equally priceless. I'd hate to develop without either.
I agree with other responses to your comment. Additionally, you don't need to take 'God' quite so literally, either. So you believe in karma or nirvana or what have you - fine. I believe the original posters intent was to direct you to consult your spirituality, whatever that might be. And as another poster has mentioned, atheism isn't spirituality, its the lack thereof. If you're happy with that, far be it from me to disagree with that - to each their own. However, even atheists typically have some sort of philosophy to follow, be it Kant or Socrates or any number of other philosophers. Since spirituality is very much akin to philosophy (consider it a philosophy of living), reflect on your philosophy of life, if you are indeed an atheist.
Cheers.
I, too, was wondering if SGI has produced a patch for this or if its running a linus kernel. Chances are, though, it isn't 2.4.x which is in maintenance mode, but rather the 2.5.x series, which is concentrating on enhancing scaleability. Surprising, however, that the 2.5.x line would have gotten such impressive results so early. 2.5.x has only been in the works for a short time now, right?!?
So, if its not worth it then wouldn't that mean that either the cost of bandwidth to the backbone or the equipment necessary to offer higher speeds to the last mile (if that's an issue) would be a limiting factor?!? Otherwise, why limit the bandwidth?!?
... do you disagree?
I understand what you're saying about 1.5Mbps being fine for 95% of customers (it is for me), but this thread was talking about how having fiber-optics in the last mile won't make much of a difference because of the cost of bandwidth currently
If you want the system to work, you'll need to reform a few things. For example, the RIAA fixes the prices on CDs. The MPAA must do something to keep the prices constant for going to the movies - here in Madison it costs between $9 and $12 to go to a non-matinee movie. And that's for *every* movie ... doesn't matter if the movie is good or bad, adult or child - fixed price.
These types of things provide certain industries with monopoly control. When an industry with monopoly control also controls copyright and other IP law, you're in a world of hurt. And the actual corporations would be in as much of a world of hurt as we would be, in the long run. If someone sat down to think about it (like Jack Valenti, for instance) - they might take a different stance.
Read the article - it says that the university is not devulging any aspects of the person's identity at their request. So, they know - they just aren't telling anyone. It really isn't that hard.
The donation is anonymous for us, not for the university.
While it is true that we are currently not a large enough lobby (that can and probably will change), we are most certainly a large enough voting block. I recently wrote my senator, Russ Feingold (WI), about various bills/amendments introduced that affect the broadcast flag and such. I got a personal (not form) letter back from him (or one of his staffers) addressing my concerns and inviting me to keep him in the loop on further developments and even drop by his office.
... just don't have *everyone* use the same letter to the same lawmakers ... its perfectly fine if I write the same letter to Tammy Baldwin (Representative, WI), Russ Feingold (Senator, WI), my district's state senators/reps and the soon to be newly elected governor (hopefully Kathleen Falk, but we'll see). Its not like they're gonna sit down and talk about your letter with each other - and if they do, its not like they'll be offended that they got the same one. After all, its from the same person. They only get offended (or just ignore 'em) if they get the same letter from multiple people - that's bad!
..
Whenever you see a YRO (your rights online) article that elicits a call to action, DO SOMETHING! Write your senators, your representatives, bring it to the attention of your state and national lawmakers, including your governor. Granted, things won't change immediately, but we do have a voice - the more folks that actually do something, the sooner things will start changing. If you're tired of picking up the morning newspaper and only seeing non-important smack in it, write your newspaper editors, compose an article and see if it gets run - even on the most removed page in the newspaper, something is better than nothing!
People are far to content to do nothing. Thinking that if they don't have $100 or $1000 to provide to the EFF then there's nothing to be done. Think again! Poor college student? Get something written up in the college newspaper. Run a petition - see how many folks in your college/university feel the same way you do - try to educate the ones that don't or listen to their reasons why they oppose you. I imagine a good number of college kids will understand why giving the RIAA/MPAA unfettered access to your computer for the suspicion that you might be harboring copyrighted materials (illegally) is a BAD thing. If you find folks that understand what you're talking about - have THEM write to their congressmen, senators, governors, etc. as well. Don't use form letters, but provide 'em with topics to address. And there's nothing wrong with one individual using the same letter (with slight modifications maybe) to *all* the lawmakers that they vote for
Anyway
My memories are somewhat foggy on the Ross Perot commercials, but from what I remember, he wasn't going head-to-head with the bread-n-butter of the television networks. Just a thought ...
I've forwarded your comment to the head of the CS dept. at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, my alma mater. Thanks for the info!
Quoting:
While I can understand that the cost of the last mile and consumer uptake can be significant, these are one-time non-recurring costs. Maintenance of the last mile and other infrastructure systems is a recurring cost, as is the cost of backbone connection. Capping bandwidth doesn't really make sense if the last mile and consumer uptake is the limiting factor, right?
I'm not sure what the solution is to getting the cost of last-mile installation down. Seems you'll always be needing to pay for the techs to come out and get things setup, until the broadband connections are ubiquitous.
A good commercial is going to cost a good bit more than $1 million to reach any magnitude of people, never mind the cost of actually producing the commercial. Furthermore, never mind the media that the commercial will run on: television, owned by such folks as Time Warner and the like who are card carrying members of the MPAA, last I checked. Not to be pessimistic or anything, but just put it into perspective. I, also, am dubious about what $1 million will do in the hands of Duke University's law school.
Beyond me ... not a physicist and certainly not an expert on telescopes :) Sounds feasible, though!
Precisely ... it'll be *so* nice to have fiber-optics to my house (and even wired *in* my house) and still only get a measly 2Mbps to the 'Net. I think what we'll find happening in the next 5-10 yrs, though, is having differing levels of speed based on geography.
For instance, homes will be outfitted with particularly high-bandwidth mediums (to stream video from TiVo to TiVo, etc). Then, connections within your neighborhood, community, town will be the next level of bandwidth, as you stay within your local 'Net (so accessing the local newspaper, TV stations, gov't., etc. will be real quick). Then, access to state-wide and nation-wide services will be the next level, as your connection has to traverse the various backbones to get where its going. Finally, access to global resources will be the last level, as you have to traverse intercontinental (trans-pacific/trans-atlantic) connections (satellite, ocean-bed fiber, etc.)
As the contention for a connection increases, based on the number of folks who would potentially want to access it (less folks want to access local community resources than sites such as CNN or Reuters), the bandwidth experienced will necessarily decrease, right?
Just a quick note: there are two spellings to this: Fiber and Fibre. Fiber refers to the glass/plastic optical medium whereas Fibre refers to a type of communication, I believe. E.g. fibre channel, a popular method of high-speed connection for external drives. Nothing optical about it (though it can work over fiber-optic cables) and the protocol that runs over it can be SCSI (or anything else, such as TCP/IP).
No doubt ... I certainly don't, and a good number of businesses I work with don't, either. Considering a T1 at 1.5Mbps still sets you back between $500 and $1K a month, T3 lines (at 45Mbps) will set you back quite a bit more, I imagine (about 1-2 yrs ago, I heard a T3 would run you about $20K per month). I can't fathom what Rackspace must pay in monthly bandwidth fees for the 3 OC-12s, an OC-3 and a DS-3, which they try to keep at 60% bandwidth utilization (or so). Christ.
Interesting quote:
Maybe I'm just naive (probably), but the limiting factor today for broadband Internet access is the cost of the bandwidth, possibly due to the stranglehold a few key companies have on access to their backbones. The cable that comes into my house can be used for speeds in excess of 30Mbps, if I recall correctly, yet I have a mere 1.5-2Mbps (at $39.95/mo). Admittedly, DSL has technical limitations on speed, but even so, the large limiting factor seems to be the cost of an OC-12/48/96 connection to the 'Net, right?
When is that gonna change?!? What is needed to bring about that change? Regulation?
Here's a link:
link